INTELLIGENCE OF FLOWERS 



flower of our hothouses, the one that seems to us the typical 

 Orchid, so to speak. The Cypripedium has boldly sup- 

 pressed all the complicated and delicate apparatus of the 

 springy pollen-packets, the diverging stalks, the viscid discs, 

 the insidious gums and the rest. Its clog-like chin and a bar- 

 ren, scutate anther bar the entrance in such a manner as to 

 compel the insect to pass its proboscis over two little heaps of 

 pollen. But this is not the important point: the wholly un- 

 expected and abnormal thing is that, contrary to w^hat we 

 have observed in all the other species, it is no longer the 

 stigma, the female organ, that is viscid, but the pollen itself, 

 whose grains, instead of being powdery, are covered with a 

 coat so glutinous that it can be stretched and drawn into 

 threads. What are the advantages and the drawbacks of this 

 new arrangement? It is to be feared that the pollen carried 

 off by the insect may adhere to any object other than the 

 stigma; on the other hand, the stigma is dispensed from secret- 

 ing the fluid intended to sterilize all foreign pollens. In any 

 case, this problem would demand a special study. In the 

 same way, there are patents whose usefulness we do not grasp 

 at once. 



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